After upgrading my computer from Windows XP to Windows Vista Home Premium a number of programs no longer work or do not work as well as they did on Windows Vista. Is it possible to run both Windows XP and Vista on the one computer? I plan to add a second internal hard drive for this purpose. However, I have no idea how to setup such a dual-boot system. (more…)

Just got home from Cisco Networkers 2009 #cnw09. What a fantastic conference with great people. Back to work now.

If you are running a wireless network at home, it is imperative that security is enabled on the network to prevent unauthorised persons from connecting to your wireless network (and potentially stealing your internet). Older routers used the WEP standard for security. This is now dated and is also insecure, as it can be easily broken. I strongly encourage all people to at least secure their networks using WPA-PSK which is a much stronger version of the old insecure WEP standard. Most wireless routers should support this out of the box, or through a firmware (software) upgrade usually available for free from the website of the wireless router manufacturer. Once you have enabled WPA-PSK you will need to enter a password on your computer to connect to the wireless network, and only people with that password will be able to connect. Additionally, data transmitted between your computer and the wireless router will be encrypted, preventing someone from eavesdropping on your wireless network traffic.

I have installed Registry Mechanic 8.0 and Roxio Media Creator 9 on my computer. Both programs worked fine for quite a while, but recently whenever opening Registry Mechanic the installer for Roxio My DVD DE starts. This can be cancelled and Registry Mechanic continues to open and appears to function normally. However, this is interrupting the starting process for Registry Mechanic and is quite frustrating. Reinstalling Registry Mechanic does not solve the issue. How can I stop this from occurring? The computer is running Windows Vista Home Premium. (more…)

The following message often appears on my computer: “userinit.exe - application error. The application failed to initialise properly (0xc0000005)”. In order to clear this message I need to press CTRL-ALT-DEL to open the Task Manager and manually kill the task. The computer is running Windows XP. (more…)